


Make it Stop (The Arcana one shot)

by KoreFanFic



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Apprentice - Freeform, Death, F/M, Fire, Flashbacks, Oneshot, Plague, asra - Freeform, dying, the arcana - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 09:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20374453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoreFanFic/pseuds/KoreFanFic
Summary: Memories are a tricky thing. They are never completely forgotten, especially the memories of your own death. (This is a one shot fan fiction of The Arcana. The characters involded here are Asra and a female MC)





	Make it Stop (The Arcana one shot)

"Morning Asra!" I call out as I get to the bottom of the stairs and enter the magick shop. The room is full of colour this morning as sunlight dances through the windows and reflects beautifully off the many glass bottles of magick potions and healing crystals that line the walls.  
Asras fluffy white head pops out from the back room, his violet eyes glittering in the sunlight. His face breaks into a glorious smile.  
"Morning! Did you sleep well?"He asks brightly, as he walks over to meet me at the counter.  
"As always! You should have woken me earlier though, we should be open by now!" I notice the sign in the window is still showing "Closed".  
"Actually I thought we could take the day off! Go out for a walk, maybe get some pumpkin bread?" He eyes meet mine and for a brief second something that wreaks of mischief dances across his face.  
"*You* want to take a day off?" I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, and watch as he avoids my gaze and shuffles his feet nervously.  
"Yes." He says, staring at the ground intently.  
I lean up on my tiptoes and place my hand under his soft, yet messy white hair and lift his eyes to mine by his forehead.  
"Do you have the plague?" I ask with a smirk, playfully glaring up into his swirling eyes. He lets out a bark of a laugh and grabs my hand in his, pulling it down to his chest.  
"No, I don't have the plague, I swear!" he laughs.

Suddenly everything around me shifts. The beautiful mix of colours from the shop are gone, the ceiling high bookshelves are replaced by wet brick walls and rain. The back room vanishes, in its place is a dead end of an alleyway. Asra is gone, where he stood now towers a large black figure, cloaked from head to toe and hidden behind a black plague doctor mask,its large gloved hand gripping my own like a vice. Two glossy windowed eyes bare down into my soul as I try weakly to pull my hand away from the figure.  
As I pull again, it speaks, the words echoing off the inside of its mask and my mind. Rain hammers down on us both, raindrops running down the figures mask and soaking my hair and clothes.  
"I'll ask you again magician: Do you have the plague?" The figure grips my wrist tighter, I can feel the bones grinding under its large gloved hand, the sound of its rubbery gloves rubbing off my skin makes me wince.  
I try to open my mouth to say no but instead I splutter a cough that is followed by the taste of blood in my mouth.  
"Let her go!" Asras voice comes from behind us, and as I turn to see him standing at the opening of the alleyway completely drenched in rain, two more cloaked figures restraining him from coming after me. I meet his eyes for what feels like hours, but could only of been a few seconds.  
Why does he look so... Terrified?

With a loud crash I'm back in the shop, lying flat on my back, surrounded by books and a horrified looking Asra.  
"Don't move!" He hovers his hands over me, looking scared to even touch me as his eyes boar into mine.  
"What happened?" I grumble as the pain of hitting the bookshelf finally catches up to me.  
"I don't know. You went white as a ghost and collapsed! Are you hurt?" Asra still doesn't touch me, but his eyes are scanning me feverishly, searching for any injury from my fall.  
"I-I was outside. In the rain. But it hasn't rained here in-"  
"2 years," Asra finishes my sentence for me. His eyes are locked with mine but something about them is different. They aren't shining anymore, they are almost opaque, glossed over, like hes trying to hide something.  
"But I don't remember anything from back then," I say quietly, pulling myself up to a sitting position. "Do I?"  
"It appears you've remembered something," He replies softly, diverting his gaze to my hands as he takes them cautiously in his and pulls me to my feet.  
"Why did it have to be that night?" He mumbles as he turns away from me and runs his hands through his hair. He paces around the shop for a moment, his hands still wrist deep in his hair, growling quietly to himself, before he turns to me with tears in his eyes.  
"Of all the nights you could remember, why did it have to be the worst one?" he asks, before sinking to his knees in front of me. Without thinking I run over to kneel beside him, my arms wrapping round him instinctively and pulling him close while he sobs quietly. I'm confused and shaken by whatever it was that just happened but Asra feels like hes falling apart in my arms. I feel his arms reach up and he holds me back, his entire body shaking with every breath he takes.  
"Asra?" I whisper quietly. Despite how distraught he is, I have to ask. "What was that I saw? Why was that Plague Doctor asking if I had the plague?"  
"Because. I'd been hiding you. From them." Asra buried his head deep into my shoulder almost like he was bracing for something.  
"Why?" I ask, but deep down already knowing what he was about to say next.  
"Because you had the plague. And I didn't want them to find you!" Asra pulled back from me, his hands gripping my back tightly, his eyes red and full of fear, like they were that night in the alley.  
"I didn't want you to die! I tried so hard. We were so close to a cure, I could feel it! We could of saved you. I could of saved you and everything would of been alright. We were so damn close! But it wasn't enough." He frantically spits his words out, like he can't control himself. Like he'd been holding those words in for 2 years.  
"What do you mean "Wasn't enough"? Asra, what happened in that alley?" I asked quietly, almost a whisper as a large pit of dread opens up in my stomach. A chill runs down my spine and into my bones, a tiny voice in my head screaming at me not to ask. Telling me I don't want to know what happened. But I have to know.  
But Asra doesn't need to explain. Before he can open his mouth to speak I'm struck with flashes from that night.  
The Doctor throwing me over their shoulder and carrying me past Asra.  
Tears streaming down Asras face as he tries to fight the two other masked figures off.  
Sparks of magic flying through the air above my head as I'm thrown into the caged wagon of infected people.  
My arm, grey and covered in red blotches, reaching through the bars of the cage, trying desperately to reach Asra, who is being carried off by four Guardsmen.  
An overwhelming feeling of weakness runs through my body.  
I'm lying on the floor of the cage, surrounded by coughing, crying people. Some old, some young, all grey and covered in red blotches.  
I'm in pain. Why does it hurt to breathe? It hurts when my heart beats, like I can feel the disease pulsing through me, seeping into every inch of my body.  
I can't move my limbs. I can't open my mouth. They think I'm already dead but I'm not. I'm just tired. I need to get back to Asra.  
Maybe I can help him with the cure? I can make myself and all these poor people feel better.  
I'm back in the shop again. I'm on my knees, pain ripping through my body. Asra is clutching me in his arms as waves of pain ripple through my body, violently shaking me with each one.  
"I'm so sorry!" Asra whispers in my ear as he holds me tight. I can hear the pain in his voice.  
I start to bounce between my memories and the shop floor uncontrollably. My head swimming with pain in both places as what feels like ice fills my veins.  
I can't help but scream. Words start falling out my mouth without me realizing it.  
"I was still alive. They thought I was dead because I couldn't move but I was still alive!" I gape at Asra. He buries his head in my shoulders and pulls me into his chest as its my turn to sob into him now.  
"I was on a boat! They filled a boat with people. Some were already dead. Some were too sick to move!"  
I choked on the words as pain shot through my stomach, making me feel sick. Images of a deep black ocean heavy grey clouds fill my eyes.  
"A woman. On the boat. She jumped. Said she'd rather drown than burn."  
I watch helplessly from a memory as a young woman,no older than me, grey skin and covered in blood claws her way to the edge of the boat and throws herself into the murky waters. The Plague Doctor rowing the boat doesn't appear to so much as glance at her as she lands in the water with a sickening splash.  
Asra is clinging on to me, holding me tight as I watch on in horror as I relive my own memories.  
"They took us to an island. The Lazeret! They took us to the Lazeret. I can smell the burning. It hurts. Oh god no! Please no!"  
The roar of the furnace thunders in my ears. I can feel the heat on my skin. Screaming fills the air. The smell of burning bodies stings my nose and and somehow manages to shock me into moving.  
I drag myself across the pile of already dead people beneath me, my weak hands slipping on the corpses. I try to get away, but a large cloaked figure stands on my hands, stopping me in my tracks.  
"Where do you think you're going?" Its voice somehow breaks through the shrill cries of people being burned alive just feet behind me.  
"I'm. Alive. Please. Help," I croak out the words, trying desperately to pull my hands free from under the figures boots but its no use.  
He scoffs.  
"You have the plague, lady. You've been dead for awhile." He steps off my hands and before I can lift them to try continue my escape, I'm lifted into the air on to the figures shoulders and it carries me over the pile of dead. Back the way I came. Towards the furnace.  
"No! No please no! Let me go!" I scream. I feel blood vessels burst in my eyes as I claw at Asras arms, trying madly to escape whats already passed. Pain soars through my head, down my spine and into my stomach. I cant breathe.  
I trying helplessly to kick and claw my way off the Doctors back. But its pointless. I hear the loud clanking behind me as he pulls open the furnace door.  
Intense heat hits my back and my legs. The smell is awful. It fills my nose and my eyes and makes my tongue want to curl down my throat. My ears are ringing.  
"Asra... Help... Me," I sigh out my last words as the feeling of fire wraps itself around my body.  
I can feel the flames licking my skin, its like its pulling it off the bone. I can feel all of it. My skin bubbles and splits as it comes away from my body. My bones ache with unbearable agony, my clothes catching fire around me.  
"It hurts! Oh god no! Let me out it hurts!" I scream hoarsely, not even sure where the screaming is coming from.  
Pain consumes me. I can't think, I can't see, I can't breathe. I don't know how long I can feel the fire as it boils my blood inside me and rips the skin from me but I also don't know when the images of the inside of the furnace finally stop.  
Back on the shop floor I am soaked with sweat and tears. My clothes are sticking to my skin, my eyes are tightly closed as more and more pain beats down on me from nowhere.  
"I'm so sorry!" Asra is still holding me, still whispering in my ear through his tears.  
The pain is white hot and unbearable.  
More images are flashes across my mind.  
More fire.  
More screaming.  
A room decorated all in red, a long elegant dinning table spread out before me, only half the seats have people in them.  
Asras warm hands holding my face in the red room, a mixture of relief and disbelief painted across his face.  
"It worked!"  
A shrill, horrible voice in the distance somewhere screaming "Mine!" over and over again.  
The smell of freshly baked banana bread fills my nose. We are sat outside the bakers stall, just the two of us there. Eating, laughing, practicing magick together.  
Another memory, hits me. We are in the shop, moonlight breaking through the drapes and dancing across the shop floor. Asra is holding me, but this time no one is crying. We are smiling, staring into each others eyes in a moment that we both wanted to last forever.  
"I-I love you," Asra says, his violet eyes almost glowing in the moonlight.  
"I love you too!" I reply, leaning up to kiss him, years of longing to an end in a gloriously happy moment.  
But even those memories hurt me.  
I can't take it. It hurts too much. It wont end.  
"Please. Make it stop. Asra. Help me!" I beg quietly through my pain, my knuckles white as I hold onto his shirt, the material stretching under my fingers.  
"I can do that. I can take it away, if that's what you want," He says in my ear as he softly rubs my back and rocks me back and forth.  
"Please."  
"Okay. I'll make it stop."

...

"Morning Asra!" I call out as I get to the bottom of the stairs and enter the magick shop.  
His fluffy white head pops out from the back room, his violet eyes glittering in the sunlight. His face breaks into a glorious smile.  
"Morning! Did you sleep well?"He asks brightly, as he walks over to meet me at the counter.  
"As always! You should have woken me earlier though, we should be open by now!" I notice the sign in the window is still showing "Closed".  
Asra looks over at the sign, his glowing smile falters for a second. Then he fixes himself and turns to me and laughs loudly.  
"Silly me! I forgot to flip it over!" And he flicks his hand in the air and flips the sign with his magick.

THE END...?


End file.
